Mounting assemblies and brackets have been developed for supporting electrical outlets in housings such as in wall electrical boxes. Typically, an outlet is attached to a housing by fasteners placed into a grounding strap. A cover plate or face plate is then attached to the electrical device to cover the open end of the electrical box, hide the grounding straps, and provide a decorative appearance. Face plates are typically attached by one or more screws that extend through a screw hole in the face plate and threadedly engage a threaded bore in the electrical device.
In addition to standard wall mounted outlets, other outlet housings, such as floor boxes, have been developed to provide modular solutions permitting access to multiple electrical, data, and communication outlets. Typical electrical floor boxes have two, four or more wiring compartments around a rectangular or square center access cavity with the same number of face plates. A cover is placed over the access cavity that lies flush, or close to flush, with the floor surface. The wiring compartments are capable of receiving different types of electrical, data, and communication outlets depending on the needs and desires of the user. Accordingly, the outlets are often installed in the wiring compartments after installation of the floor box and the outlets may need to be changed or replaced over time.
Typical prior systems require numerous and sometimes complicated fastening devices for the face plates over the outlets that are time-consuming to install and repair. Typical outlet housings include those described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,041,238 to Penczak titled “Preset Housing for Electrical Distribution Box”, U.S. Pat. No. 4,591,656 to Mohr titled “Activation Kits for Pre-sets”, U.S. Pat. No. 5,285,009 to Bowman titled “Electrical Floor Box”, U.S. Pat. No. 5,362,922 to Whitehead titled “Electrical Floor Box Divider”, and U.S. Pat. No. 8,350,154 to Shotey titled “Universal Wall Plate Mount”, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference for their general relevance and are not meant to supersede the description and definitions set forth herein.